When the Vietnam War finally ended in April 1975 with the communist
capture of Saigon, Vietnam itself became a closed country, out of
bounds to western travellers and journalists. By 1989, however,
such was Vietnam's economic plight that the government decided the
time had come to open its doors again, albeit most gingerly. By a
stroke of good fortune Justin Wintle became the first writer from
the West to be allowed to journey around the whole of Vietnam, from
Pac Bo on the Chinese border in the north to Ca Mau in the far
south, below the Mekong Delta - though never without a posse of
helpful, watchful "minders". But because he had official approval,
he was able to meet many of those who had played a prominent part
in Vietnam's recent history, among them General Vo Nguyen Giap, the
victor of Dienbienphu and principal architect of America's military
humiliation, and Le Duc Tho, the man who outsmarted Henry Kissinger
during the Paris peace negotiations. "Romancing Vietnam" is Justin
Wintle's classic account of what he found in post-war Vietnam, and
how, for three months, he played cat and mouse with those charged
with keeping him in line, while developing a profound love for more
ordinary Vietnamese and the astonishing landscapes they inhabit. A
young man's book, written with open eyes and a deft pen, "Romancing
Vietnam", first published in 1991, describes a heaven and hell
country, still full of the pain of war and unappeased ghosts, but a
place of hope nevertheless, as also of sometimes outlandish comedy.
General
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